What Does 1 Corinthians 5:7 Mean?
Clean out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened. For even the Anointed One, our Passover, was slaughtered for us.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:THE KEY
The new lump comes by removing the old ferment, while the verse already names the people unleavened.
THE MEANING
The old ferment is cleared so the shared life can stand as a new whole, already named unleavened. The verse holds becoming and being together: the lump becomes new through the clearing, while its unleavened identity is already true. Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that wholeness arrives only after something new is added; this verse pictures newness coming through the removal of the old ferment and names the people unleavened already.
THE ROOT
ἄζυμοι
azymoi
GROWS FROM
ζυμ
Leaven or ferment; the stem at the heart of leavening.
The word translated “unleavened” contains the same ζυμ (zym, leaven or ferment) seed as the word translated “leaven”; its negative prefix marks the absence of that ferment. The verse’s newness comes through clearing away the old leaven, while the people are already called unleavened.
ALSO GROWS
zymē: Leaven; ferment.
ζύμη
This noun shares the ζυμ stem with ἄζυμοι, showing that “leaven” and “unleavened” belong to one word family.
zymoō: To leaven; to cause to ferment.
ζυμόω
The verb shares the same stem and names the process that turns a little leaven into a force working through the whole lump.
ἐκκαθάρατε
ekkatharate
GROWS FROM
καθαρ
Clean; cleanse.
“Clean out” in this verse is ekkatharate. The verb joins ἐκ (ek, out) to the καθαρ (kathar, clean) stem. Its kinship with “clean” gives the command the texture of clearing something out, so the old ferment is removed rather than replaced by an added substance.
ALSO GROWS
katharos: Clean; pure.
καθαρός
It shares the καθαρ stem, linking the act of purging with the state of being clean.
katharizō: To cleanse; to make clean.
καθαρίζω
This verb shares the same stem and shows the family’s movement from clearing away to a cleansed state.
פֶּסַח
pesaḥ
GROWS FROM
פסח
To pass over; to spare.
The Greek πάσχα (pascha, Passover) carries the Hebrew פֶּסַח (pesaḥ), from פָּסַח (pāsaḥ, to pass over or spare). The name holds an action inside it: a passing-over that spares, alongside the verse’s blunt claim that this Passover is sacrificed for us.
ALSO GROWS
pāsaḥ: To pass over; to spare.
פָּסַח
The verb shares the consonants פ־ס־ח with פֶּסַח, placing the feast name beside the action of passing over or sparing.
pesaḥ: Passover; the Passover feast.
פֶּסַח
This noun shares the root’s consonants and is carried into Greek as πάσχα (pascha, Passover), the word behind “Passover” in this verse.
THE PATTERN
A small ferment does not stay local: it works through the whole shared life.
Seven days you will eat unrisen bread. But on the first day you will make the leaven cease from your houses, for whoever eats risen bread from the first day until the seventh day, that living soul will be cut off from Israel.Then Jesus said to them, Perceive, and hold yourselves back from the leaven of the separated ones and of the Sadducees.A little leaven leavens the whole kneaded mass.THE THREAD
And the blood will be a mark for you upon the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will leap over you, and the blow will not be upon you to ruin you when I strike down the land of Egypt.The Hebrew root פ־ס־ח (p-s-ḥ, pass over or spare) appears in Exodus’s “pass over”; the Greek πάσχα (pascha, Passover) in this verse carries the same name. That makes “our Passover” more than a title: the verse identifies the sacrificed one with the act that spares from the plague.
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